Thoughts with Jewish InsightFrom the Rebbitzen's Desk

I don’t know your histories. Some of you are people who I have known since my pre-historic teen years. Others are people I met a month or so ago. One of the many things that you share is that none of you (at least as far as I know) are stuck. You don’t live the same day again and again. Some of you have made radical life choices. You are almost unrecognizable from who you were in what feels like a previous life (That’s you in the football uniform? In the sari? In the cockpit?). Others have made choices that are far less visible but arguably equally as dramatic (That’s you in the back with the almost tznius skirt? That’s you when you lived in Winnipeg? In Detroit? In Williamsburg?).

You are Avraham’s children, and as you know, he left everything behind him to become the man Hashem wanted him to be. The choices that Yitzchak made in his lifetime are no less significant than the ones that Avraham made. The easiest choice, the one he didn’t make, would have been to be Avraham the Second. Instead, he began carving out his unique destiny by becoming himself. Avraham brought true emunah into the world, and expressed his love of Hashem by bringing awareness of His presence into the world both by his teachings and by his example of what chessed really means. Yitzchak didn’t re-discover the wheel. He took emunah to another place, and developed his inner devotion to Hashem to the point that our collective capacity for self-sacrifice is the flowers that bloomed from the seeds that he planted. Ramchal speaks of the times in which the Patriarchs and Matriarchs lived as the era of the “roots”, to use his words.We are the branches, leaves and flowers that come from those roots.

I overheard a conversation on the way home from shul Friday night. The speakers were young men (in their teens or early twenties), and I could trace their accents to the wilds of the tri-state area. “Things here are so different! I couldn’t get over all of the succos in the streets. But even Yom Kippur was different?” ”How? Doesn’t everyone back home also go to shul? Aren’t the words in the machzor basically the same?” “That’s the difference. Back home, everyone goes to shul.”

That’s the mission. Once you are there, it’s mission accomplished. It doesn’t matter whether you pray, space out, or take breaks and chill. As long as you are there. Everyone dresses in really expensive clothes, and that’s the scene. The main thing is that you actually show up. Here, I actually saw someone cry during the tefillah. I was blown away”.

What moved me most in this dialogue wasn’t the tefillah of the man who wept. It was the fact that so many people who clearly don’t have all that much depth in their understanding of what tefillah is and what Yom Kippur can do, still ‘show up”. They have something of Avraham’s faith that drives them forward. They also, no doubt, are descendants of people who were willing to give anything they had to remain Jewish. You may very reasonably ask how I know this about some anonymous young man’s ancestors. The fact that he is Jewish means that sacrifice was in his bones. He either came from people who lived in Eastern European ghettos, or suffered in indignity of being “dhammi”, the Mideastern word for being third class citizens. They may have lived underground and under threat, like the Persian Jews of Meshad.

Leaving everything behind isn’t easy, nor is what most of us will ever be called upon to do. When you look at your “past life”, there are two ways to go. One is being so to speak “reborn”. This means, in essence, saying “this is who I was, not who I am. There is no past”. I have a friend who grew up in America’s heartland, where Jews are seldom seen, and are not part of the “societal backdrop”. Her mom bought matzah for Pesach, and that was enough for her to think of her family as religious. Her Dad’s job in sales demanded a great deal of mobility. She saw the country from sea to shining sea in small installments. There were stops-along-the-way. One was in the Big Apple, N.Y. When people in Monsey, her present home, asked her where she is from originally, she goes into denial mode. She is not her past. It’s dead, and she likes it that way. She says, “Boro Park”. When I asked her (in my subtle refined way, “HUH?”) She told me that they had spent some time in Brooklyn when her father was trying to close a contract with a Jewish importer, and she had been to Boro Park numerous times. I didn’t push her further. She is, for all intents and purposes, a person who has chosen to live a life that began at 22, when Hashem’s providence somehow got her to Neve. She fits in, her kids fit in, and for her that is enough.

The other way to relate to having a life that has both a part one and a part two is integration. Another friend has a completely different attitude towards Part One. Photos of her parents, grandparents, and various other people from There, decorate the corner of her living room over the piano. They don’t look like the people from Part Two. Her married son’s wedding pictures are replete with in-laws who look like the gedolei torah that they are. Pictures of Rabbanim grace the area over the dining room. Every so often she tells her guests an anecdote or two about her childhood. Her parent’s generosity, their love of tradition and their connection to the Jewish people are, to her, stops along the way to where she is now, not an entirely different journey. She makes no secret of this that she finds their lives to be a source of inspiration, although she would never deny the tragedy of their ignorance. Her friends usually pick up her attitude, which opens their hearts to understanding people whose lives are so limited by their ignorance and society that they have to be judged on an entirely different scale. They learn to do that, and see a world that is far more multidimensional than the world that they are used to. Some of her friends don’t get it. She takes the patronization/curiosity with a grain of salt and moves on.

For Avraham this sort of integration wasn’t possible. His father, Terach, wasn’t well meaning but clueless. He lived in a world that was steeped in idol worship, and he was actively involved. Avraham stood alone, more alone than anything you or I can even imagine. Hashem told him to head for the land where, I will show you yourself”. He chose to do so, and became someone from who virtually everyone in today’s world who can have any claim to genuine belief in one G-d (and with that recognition of accountability, basic morality and much more), has a heavy debt to someone who had the courage to move on. If you would have asked him where he came from, perhaps the answer would have been Chevron or Beersheva. He would not be lying. That’s where he became himself.​Love,Tziporah

We’re back! Work, school, whatever you do with your day, is no longer on hold; the holidays are over.Real Life has raised its head after a month overflowing with lavish spiritual nurture. Now you have choices to make. It can all be filed away in the folder called The Holidays, or you bring it with you. This means that you have to bite the bullet, and head towards a world that is concrete, defined, and awfully demanding. I miss the holidays already. Just thinking about bircat kohanim, with its surging crowds, makes me hungry for more. “Hearing” (well actually just recalling) the resounding “amen” after each of the ancient triplicate brachos recited at the Kotel does it. I “see” hundreds of men who can trace themselves back to Aharon take me to another world.

Being back in Real Life still has its virtues.

You are back to the daily grind, and to tell you the truth, I think most of us like it that way. When you get up in the morning with a to-do list in your mind as you say modeh ani, the adrenalin starts flowing. The first day of Real Life for me was Friday. Hashem in His infinite mercy knew how ambivalent I was about leaving the holidays behind, so He gave me a special treat to help me get through the transition.Friday was going to be a memorable day no matter what. My son Baruch’s youngest boy, Natanel, was scheduled to put on tefillin for the first time, a month before his Bar Mitzvah. They chose the Kotel as the best place for this to take place. The entire Heller tribe came for the occasion, as did my daughter-in-law’s clan, the Becker family. I was standing near the mechitzah watching him put on the tefillin, when suddenly it became clear that Someone Important arrived at the Kotel plaza. There were cameras flashing, music playing (which is usually not allowed in the plaza), and many men in white uniforms. A stretcher followed. I soon found out what was happening. A woman who volunteers for the Magen David Adom (Israeli version of the Red Cross), has a son who shares a birthday with Natanel. She mentioned her plan of bringing him to the Kotel to her great uncle. “I want to go too”, he said. “I want to put on tefillin”. The man is 93 years old; his Bar mitzvah was meant to take place 80 years ago. The times weren’t right-he never did end up having a real Bar Mitzvah, or have the opportunity to don tefillin. He asked his niece if she could make this a joint Bar Mitzvah. With a little help from her friends, fellow volunteers, he was there, putting on tefillin for the first time along with his about to be thirteen year old great great grand-nephew. The volunteers played the Jewish music that he remembered from his early years, heveinu shalom Aleichem, David Melech Yisrael, and more.

I felt like I was on a bridge between worlds. When we walked up to Har Tzion where my daughter in law Batya had arranged a beautiful breakfast, I didn’t feel the back-to-reality- let down that sometimes happens, sort of like jet lag, when you fly from heaven to earth. It felt organic and right to move into the big decisions, like choosing whole wheat bagels because they are more healthful, or the ones made out of white flour that are made with onion and garlic. It was natural. Fun. A great way to take the Kotel with you into your heart. The Real World is where it’s at; we are here to give it purpose and direction, never to deny its power or its potential.

Today (26 of Cheshvan) is my husband’s yahrtzeit. It fit his personality so well to leave us just after the holidays were over, leaving us with his unforgettable way of being both practical and inspired as a relevant heritage. The family will be headed to Har hazeitim, which is the site where the revival of the dead will begin. The entire idea of returning to this world after death was once a puzzle to me. Why would anyone want a return trip to a place that demands struggle, and often is the scene of failure? Isn’t the joy of the future world better?

While there is more than one approach to answering this question, the truth seems to me to lie with the Ramchal’s vision of what life is meant to be like. The war between the two sides of your nature was never meant to last your entire lifetime. Ideally, there can be a moment of final victory. This can happen only after the body is no longer demanding the right to rule. The moment that the soul and body are really united, the result is simchah.

When we were first married, my husband O.H. went to one of the building meetings that are part of life in Israel. When everyone owns their apartment (or rents from someone who owns it), it is only natural that they take care of their homes. The public areas of the building belong to everyone. That means that they don’t belong to anyone specific; neither does the roof, the entrance hall or the garden. Every building has a committee (a vaad bayit) that is in charge, and like all committees, it has a chairperson. My husband came down and announced that he is now in charge of the vaad. I was appalled. How did he let himself into a tedious and unpopular task that involves dealing with people who want things perfect but who don’t want to spend money or put in time to make things happen. People like me come from a long line of non-belongers. My aunt Fay, who belonged to a book club, was a source of mystery to the rest of us. We don’t join anything, much less run anything. I asked him why he let himself be elected to the vaad... I still remember the look- he had no concept of not bringing what you believe in into your life. Reality wasn’t the enemy to him; it was what we are all here for.​Have a great winter,Love,Tziporah

I don’t know when you will receive my letter, but here in Yerushalaim even though it is after Yom Kippur, we are deep in the tshuvah season. Huh?​“Search for Hashem when He can be found” The Talmud tells us (quoted by Rambam for those of you who still remember learning Hilchos Tshuvah). This is a reference to the ten days of tshuvah. They begin with Rosh HaShanah and end with Yom Kippur. If you exclude the holidays, there are only 7 days of tshuvah… The Shlah mentions this and says that it is to tell you that the intense holiness of these days doesn’t end with Yom Kippur. It includes all of Succot and ends with Hoshana Rabbah.

Succos is a hard holiday to explain. Some of you may have had the experience of trying to get your non-Jewish boss understand its significance. Using the word Pentecost sometimes helps although the reason that it helps isn’t that anyone knows what the word means. They know that it sounds Very Religious. While the mystery remains, when something is V.R., it’s not P.C. to ask too many questions.

The fragile huts that stay up for a week are part of your tshuvah process (even if you don’t actually get to be in one as much as you would like to). The Halachic requirements for a succah require that it have a minimum of two walls and a partial wall. The Arizal compares it to the two parts of your arm (the upper and lower parts) and then the hand which connects to the rest by your wrist. When you want to embrace someone you use all three joints and incline them towards the one you want to hug. This is what Hashem did for us in the desert. He embraced us fully, giving us protection, presence and Himself as free gifts. We were surrounded by the tangible presence of seven clouds that protected us from the outside world with its vicissitudes. When we entered Eretz Yisrael there was no more physical manifestation of Hashem’s protection. The clouds left us when we were still in the desert. The transition wasn’t easy. We love tangible evidence. Having to stretch yourself beyond tangible signs of Hashem’s love is far more challenging and demands a great deal of moving beyond self. The Lelover Rebbe would tell a story about this side of your personality.

“Jerry inherited his mom’s bad teeth. Sitting in the all too familiar dentist’s office, he got bored and phoned his friend, Jason. “You there again? If you’re stuck spending half your life in the waiting room, why not switch to my dentist, Dr. Klein. His waiting room is amazing. It’s completely wired, the décor is breathtaking and he keeps great books and magazines for the patients. Your guy has Mishpachah (which means family, and is the bestselling Jewish magazine around) magazine’s that are so old that they could have been called Bride and Groom-they weren’t even married yet. No mishpachah. Ha ha. Jerry chose not to laugh. “Is he any good?”, “Well,” replied Jason. I don’t really know about that side of the experience. My fillings fell out, and he wasn’t too happy to replace them, but at least I spent my time in a really pleasant place.” The meaning of this not so subtle parable is that when you devote your life to glorifying the “waiting room” by devoting your time here to acquisition and status, you missed the point of being here. Most of us a far more aware of the emptiness of the journey than we are of the Divine embrace. You miss out on feeling His love.That’s what Succos is about.

The word succah has the same number value (gematria) as two of Hashem’s Names. One is the one we do not say: it is the Name that tells you of Hashem’s presence being beyond time-This Name is composed of the letters that convey the concept of Being (He is, was and will be). The other Name conveys His mastery. This is the Name that relates most closely to your relationship to Hashem. You see a world that has a master, and you can’t help but questioning where your piece of the puzzle is meant to be placed.

Your life and mine are different (and of the seven billion or so people on the planet not one is a double in spite of the myth of the doppelgangers- there may be someone who looks like you, but no one who feels like you or lived a life like yours). The seven celestial “guests” who we invite to our Succos each experienced Hashem in his own way. They are called the “seven shepherds {both because that is what they actually did at various times in their lives, but also because their search makes your search easier. You have the example of the shepherds to guide you.) Their traits are part of you, even though you are an Original.

Hashem knows you more intimately than anyone else can because He molded you to a form that is never going to be repeated tells you about His love, and His vision that your unique place can’t be filled by anyone else. On the other hand, it makes it more difficult to relate to people who are at times so different than you that it is hard to find common ground. The easy way out is to live your life among those who echo your song-they sound the same, act the same and respond to life the same as you do. Aren’t they wonderful?

The more meaningful way is to take notice of the four species that we take on Succos. There are many ways to explore their significance. One of the best known hints is that the esrog (citron) is shaped like a heart, the lulav (palm frond) like the spine, the hadasim (myrtle leaves) like the eyes and the aravos (willows) like the lips. Think of their functions. They are all absolutely essential but totally different. Trying to “convert” a lulav to being an esrog is ridiculous. When you transfer this misjudgment to the way you deal with other people, it could be tragic. You will lose sight of their beauty.

Of the three, an esrog is called a “splendid fruit” It’s letters are sometimes seem as a hint of the following phrase from Tehillim Al tivienu regel gaavah” don’t let me tread with arrogance.

When you do, you stop feeling loved and protected, because you turn to yourself instead of the One who knows you better than you know yourself, and loves you more than you love yourself.

Have a wonderful Succos, and if this reaches you late, learn from it anyway!!Love,Tziporah